Meditation
10/23 2020
Morning - just before sunrise, and night - just after everybody has gone to bed are the best times of the entire day. Short spans of time that for some reason are my bread & butter. I've never really been able to put it in words exactly why that is but I think I figured out why. Mornings are full of potential. All the things one can accomplish in one day is always vast as I stare up at the roof and listen to the sounds of the street waking up next to me. Night, however, is different. It's potential is singular. My mind has gone to rest and all that remains is that which is in front of me. If it is something interesting, like my tax report, I can stay up till 3AM doing only that.
All this stands in stark contrast to daytime, where I err around like an anxious possum (only sometimes, thankfully), bite my nails and jump between one train-of-thought to the next. Or as Mr.Watts would say "trembling between alternatives". So I began to meditate because I thought that it would solve something. And it did, I guess, but only as soon as I realized that there was nothing to be solved. There was only the act of sitting(or what you prefer) and breathing. The consequence was the by-product of realizing that it had already been solved, by shutting up. I like how Zuzuki puts it:
"Zen teaches nothing; it merely enables us to wake up and become aware. It does not teach, it points."
So meditation, for me, becomes a sort of unconscious reset button - a new morning so to speak. Thoughts become clear and I slowly gain more self-restraint to over-thinking - which is good, I guess. Most importantly, maybe, is the way the sun sometimes peeks out from the clouds as I meditate on my bed besides the east-facing window.